


Without A Trace

by shuofthewind



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: AUs, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Angst with a Happy Ending, Attempt at Humor, Canon-Typical Violence, Established Relationship, Everyone Thinks They're Together, F/M, Fluff, Humor, Kal'Reegar is a dork, Lots of Cliches, Miranda is kind of great, POV Alternating, POV Outsider, Quarian love, Quarians, Shepard is good with people, Slow Build, So many AUs, Tali can't hold her booze, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Various Quarians, Various Turians - Freeform, Women Being Awesome
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-13
Updated: 2014-08-02
Packaged: 2018-02-08 14:55:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1945398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shuofthewind/pseuds/shuofthewind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tali/Kal drabbles, because there's just not enough. 003: Ruins. It had taken her so long to convince him that it was all right for him to touch her casually; she wouldn’t go through it again for a hundred shale vases. (Well. Maybe for a hundred fifty shale vases.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Forms

**Author's Note:**

  * For [turiantea](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=turiantea).



Tali’s not sure who she has to kill for this, but she definitely has to kill someone. She stares blankly at the datapad that she’s wrenched from somewhere in the middle of the pile, and across the desk, Kenn looks at her with a wary glint in his eye, like he’s waiting for her to throw something. There are a number of things that Tali has to deal with, as the head of the Tech Department at Fusion Industries, that she’d rather have cursed a krogan with than do herself, and paperwork is one of them. Paperwork that’s done properly is bad enough. Paperwork that’s riddled with errors, like this one—it’s the kiss of death. She stares at it for a long moment, and then she sets the datapad, with the utmost delicacy, back onto her desk.

“If I had known that people would do things like this,” she says to the room, and Kenn and Veetor lower their heads like they’re waiting for a bomb to drop, “then I would not have taken this job in the first place.”

“Aw, Tali.” Veetor scratches the back of his neck. He has black hair and big black eyes that suck light like spaces between the stars. “It’s just paperwork.”

She huffs, and tugs at the end of her ragged braid. She had her hair up in an elegant knot at the beginning of the day, but inevitably it ends up dangling around her ears. She runs her hands through her hair when she’s stressed. Most days a braid is the best she can do. “No,” she says, and gestures at the pile of datapads that’s still on her desk. “ _These_ are paperwork. This—” she taps a painted nail against the offending form “—is a monstrosity in digital form. I can’t believe someone wasted the bytes on this. Who—”

She sucks in air through her teeth. “Of course,” she says, and Kenn and Veetor roll their eyes at each other. Tali ignores them. Who else could it be other than—

“Excuse me, ma’am,” says Kal’Reegar from the door frame. She looks up, and is struck dumb. He’s wearing a short-sleeved shirt. She’s _never_ seen him out of a suit before. It shows off the muscles in his arms, and for some reason, that strikes her dumb, “I was wondering if I gave you the wrong datapad.”

Tali is incapable of speech. Or, rather, there are so many words rushing to her mouth that there’s a traffic jam, and she doesn’t know which one is going to come out first. She thinks it might be _bosh’tet_.  Or _handsome bastard._ Kal is dark-skinned for a quarian, with eyes and hair the same color as snow. Kal’Reegar glances at Veetor, nodding once, before marching forward (into her office! _Her_ office!) and plucking the offensive datapad from her desk, glancing over it quickly. “Ah,” he says, and then nods once. He smells…well. He smells _good_. She hates to notice. “Sorry. This one was my draft.”

“You _draft_ forms,” says Tali, unable to think of anything else. His forehead crinkles. She thinks he might be forcing back a smile.

“After the last time I messed up and made trouble for you, I thought it’d be a good idea.” He inclines his head. “Ma’am.”

Then he turns, just as quick, and marches right back out again, and Tali has no idea what to say.

“Well,” says Kenn. “ _That’s_ an excuse I’ve never heard before.”

“Excuse?” she says, and her voice sounds kind of funny. She wonders if she drank too much _trai._

“Well.” Kenn gives her a sidelong look. “I mean, it’s not like the developers come down to the IT room all that often. And Reegar’s not stupid. If he’s messing up forms, it’s on purpose. So he can come down here. And it’s definitely not to see _me_.”

“Or me,” Veetor pipes up.

“Kenn,” she says, and stacks her datapads again, purposefully not looking at him. “I have no clue what you’re talking about.”

“Right,” says Kenn, and rolls his eyes. “You keep on telling yourself that.”


	2. Backwards

“Usually,” she said, “this is the other way around.”

Kal looked up very slowly from his pint. Tali’Zorah had her hands on her hips, and her head cocked just to the right, the way it tilted when she was studying a datapad output, or an engine, or a particularly troubling logic problem that confused him to no end. Inquisitive and slightly confused, but game. He wondered whether the human engineers on the base had sent her down here, if Vakarian had told her that he’d started drinking, or if she’d just come looking on her own. Knowing Tali’Zorah, it could have been all or none of the above.

“Oh,” he said, and blinked once. Then he blinked again, because he was fairly certain that Tali’Zorah’s helmet should not have been vibrating like that. “Hello, ma’am.”

“Tali,” she corrected him, and then she dropped down in the chair opposite. In the shadows, he could almost pretend she wasn’t wearing a helmet, that she was looking right at him with no glass between them. He stared down into his glass again. It had taken a bit of maneuvering to get the straw where he needed it, but after three glasses and a few shots it had finally managed to become second-nature. The turian bartender glances over at them, and then goes back to wiping down the counter.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you drunk before,” said Tali’Zorah. “Are you all right?”

“Mm.” He eyed the empty glass. “Thanks for askin’, ma’am.” Kal had always been very proud of himself for sounding almost entirely sober even when the whole room was spinning; it was something that he’d inherited from his father. The image would fall apart as soon as he tried to stand up, but for now, at least, he could preserve some dignity. Whatever that was anymore. Dignity was a stupid word.

“Kal,” she said, and he rolled his eyes back to her face. Or mask. Or helmet. Maskmet. All quarians were better at visual cues than verbal ones; she was twisting her hands in worry. “Are you all right?”

 _I just left my whole life behind,_ he thought. _And so did you. Neither of us are all right._

“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “Sorry to worry you. Jes—Just had some…things to think about.”

Tali twisted her hands so tight together he worried about her bones. “Oh.”

They sat in silence for a while. Kal finished his drink, but when he went to call for another one, Tali’Zorah waved the bartender away. The clock on the wall read nearly 0400. “The bar is closed,” she said, and Kal didn’t have the heart in him to disagree with her. “Come on, Kal. Let’s get you back to base.”

“We’re in base,” he said. Tali stood and came around the table, seized him by the wrists, and pulled him up out of his seat. Kal tried to pull away from her—Tali’Zorah’s touch was like a burn—but he only succeeded in stumbling forward just enough for her to get an arm around his waist. She smelled like the Fleet, like suit-leather and antibiotics and glass. He had to fight the urge to press his face into the curve of her throat and breathe. After all, his helmet wouldn’t have let him.

She drew his hand over her shoulder. “Come on, soldier,” she said. “Lights out.”

He grunted.

What had he been thinking about? His head spun. Tali’Zorah was so skinny under his arm, but she held up his weight without flinching, hip bumping his at every step. He’d been thinking about their exile. He’d been thinking about the Normandy, back in Alliance hands, and Shepard, stuck on earth. He’d been thinking about the suicide run and the threat the galaxy didn’t know was coming. Mostly he’d been thinking about the trial of Tali’Zorah vas Normandy, and Haestrom. They were linked inexorably in his mind the way heat-sinks and rocket launchers were. He felt it every time his exo-suit rubbed up against the scar where the damn geth had managed to clip him, in the ancient ruins of his people, under radioactive sunlight.

The exile didn’t bother him. Exile was a blessing compared to death. Besides, there were bigger enemies to fight than geth (and ancestors, he’d never thought he’d say that, never thought he’d even think it). But the world gnawed away at him, this turian outpost on this moon that they’d found. Tali’Zorah did her research, and Kal kept an eye on her, and it was _good_. But he woke up some nights and wondered if she understood everything they’d given up. He wondered if she understood _why_.

 “Hey,” said Tali. Her fingers tightened on the curve of his waist. “I’m sorry.”

They were standing in an elevator. He hadn’t realized they’d even boarded one. He was drunker than he’d thought. Kal swiveled his head to look down at her—he wasn’t all that tall, but Tali was small even by quarian standards—and licked his lips. His breath felt hot in his mouth. “Ma’am?”

“I’m sorry I was stupid.” She let out a breath that fizzed in the voicebox of her suit, generating nothing but static. “If I hadn’t helped my father, we’d still be in quarian space. I know it’s…it’s boring here, for you. I’m sorry that I wasn’t able to convince them to—well, I guess the word isn’t ‘unexile,’ but I don’t actually know the technical term, and it doesn’t exactly matter because whatever it was I wasn’t able to fix it, and now your life is ruined. I’m sorry. It’s my fault you’re here, and…and I’m going to try and fix it, Kal. I swear I will.” She turned, and she blinked up at him through the glass of her helmet. They were close enough that he could actually see her eyes, big and white, like stars. “I’m sorry, Kal.”

His brain went all staticky. For a very long, very stupid moment, he thought about what he’d been meaning to tell her. He thought what had gone through his mind, in that courtyard in the Flotilla, that unerring instinct that had steered him right all these years. _I’ll follow her_ , he’d thought then, staring at her back as Shepard tried so desperately to reverse the Admirals’ decision. _Anywhere. Always._ Kal swallowed, and said, “Not your fault, ma’am.” He groped for words. “Made my own decision. No need for you to take that on.”

“But it _is_ my fault,” she said, so earnest it was killing him. “If I hadn’t been so stupid, then you’d still be a marine, and I would—I don’t know what I would be, probably exiled still I suppose, but at least one of us would—”

The elevators slid open. They’d hit the residential wing, and two turians, one with red markings, the other with silver, stepped aside to let them out of the elevator. The turians on this moon were polite, usually, and these ones were no different. There was no “suit rats” hissed at their backs, or lingering looks as they passed. Bless the turians for accepting those who could pull their own weight. Kal waited until the elevator doors had shut again before he said, “I knew what I was doing, Tali’Zorah. I didn’t—you’re not—” _I wasn’t going to leave you_ “—it’s not your fault.”

Tali fell quiet for a long moment. They’d reached the room that Kal had been allotted; she let go of his wrist for a moment and punched the button before heaving him through the door. The world went all twirly, like an escape pod jettisoned too soon. The next thing he knew, he was on the couch, and Tali’Zorah had vanished somewhere in the direction of the small kitchenette that was attached to his living/bedroom. He wasn’t sure what she was looking for, only that she was gone. Kal blinked, slowly, and then she’d returned, a small vial in one hand. He thought it might be medication.

“This is for when you wake up,” she said, and she set it on the table in front of him. Then she stopped, and looked at him, her hands flopping by her sides in a distinctly un-Tali-ish manner. “Kal,” she said, and when he looked up, she set her palm against the glass of his helmet.

“For what it’s worth,” she said, “I’m glad you came with me. I…I would have missed you.”

He couldn’t breathe. Kal stared at her, irrevocably still, the alcohol and disbelief washing over him in waves. Tali was just pulling her hand away when he fumbled for it, and covered her fingers with his, trapping her there, because he couldn’t bear her to leave. Not quite yet.

“Tali,” he said, and the word tumbled out of him in an anxious drunken rush. “Stay.”

Tali went stiff. Kal could have stabbed himself. He let go almost instantly, and fumbled for control again. “I mean—sorry, ma’am. That was—I’m sorry. You have work to do. I don’t need—“

“No,” she said. She almost seemed to breathe it. She twisted her hand in his, and then she’d laced their fingers together, squeezing tight. “No, I’ll stay. I’ll stay.”


	3. Ruins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It had taken her so long to convince him that it was all right for him to touch her casually; she wouldn’t go through it again for a hundred shale vases. (Well. Maybe for a hundred fifty shale vases.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Archaeologist Tali!AU. Yeah. Uh. I've been watching a lot of Indiana Jones lately.

The volus was driving her crazy, and he’d only been at the digsite for a day. Tali rubbed her nose anxiously with her forefinger (it was so sunburned she wouldn’t have been surprised if her skin peeled beneath her fingertip; since she was working, she couldn’t bring herself to care) and ducked out of the tent.

It had been Shepard who had passed word to her of this place. An almost fully intact quarian temple from over a thousand years ago, untouched by the geth and left alone by mercenary scavengers. Liara had been the one to discover it, but since she had much better things to do than go over old quarian things (the Protheans waited for no asari, after all) she’d passed the news on to Shepard, who had called Tali. The next morning, Tali had had all the paperwork in hand for her university to stake a claim on the spectacular new find. And the place was spectacular; traditional quarian architecture, kept hidden for centuries by deep sands that had recently been overturned by the worst sandstorm in Yiren’s history. The walls were scratched and scored, but the doors had never opened, and inside were the wall paintings. Oh, _keelah_ , the paintings, their colors still fresh, barely cracked despite everything that had happened in the millennia between their creation and their rediscovery. Tali had cried the first time she’d seen them. Unashamedly, unabashedly cried. Shepard had patted her on the back, somewhat awkwardly (she’d helped bring all of Tali’s equipment out to Yiren) and then gone swanning off somewhere to save the galaxy, or something.

The volus, on the other hand, had shown up yesterday. He was one of the university’s major donors, and thus had come out to see how her project was coming. Considering she’d been here less than a week, there wasn’t really anything to _show_ —at least, nothing that a donor would find all that interesting—but he’d shown up nearly a month early because his extended vacation had come to an abrupt end or something and now she had to herd him around instead of doing what she was actually being paid to do.

Tali let out a huffing breath and swiped her hair up into a ponytail. Talon Kar wasn’t an exceptional example of the volus species, though she’d met worse. (The last time she’d been to the Citadel, it had been a volus who had accused her of petty theft. She’d had to call down her supervisor and get the whole of C-SEC in a tizzy before he’d finally retracted it.) If she could just convince him that a week’s worth of work wasn’t enough to base the budgeting for their entire quarter on, then they’d probably be all right.

There was a rap at her door. Her intercom buzzed. “I have a progress report, if you’d like to see it, ma’am.”

Tali hit the lock. The door hissed, and she had to shield her eyes from the blinding light of Yiren as Kal slipped inside and palmed the door shut again, peeling off his sunhat. Yiren was one of the few planets in all of the universe that still had the same sweet atmosphere as their home planet, Rannoch, and so since the whole team was quarian (aside from the volus, whose suit had been sterilized) no one bothered to wear enviro-suits here. Kal, being logical, was wearing a hat. Tali, being focused, had not. She frowned—not at him, just in general—and then dropped down into her chair again and rubbed her temples. “Please tell me the progress report isn’t that Talon Kar has blown something up.”

“Pretty sure you would have heard it if something exploded.” Kal peeled off his gloves, and set them on one of the empty specimen boxes. He might be an independent contractor now, but his hands were still all marine, callused and scarred from old heat sinks. There was a ring of sweat around the collar of his shirt. “Everyone’s working fine, Tali’Zorah. As always. You _have_ only been in here ten minutes.”

“Don’t tease,” she said, and leaned her head back. “I have the most terrible headache and if Kar makes one more comment on how the Rannoch-clan would do well to forget Rannoch I’m going to kill someone.”

“No, you wouldn’t,” he said. He set his fingertips to her temples and pushed, gently. Tali groaned a little when her headache eased. It had taken her so long to convince him that it was all right for him to touch her casually; she wouldn’t go through it again for a hundred shale vases. (Well. Maybe for a hundred fifty shale vases.) “That might get blood on the temple paintings.”

Her eyes flew open. “ _Keelah_ , he hasn’t been near my paintings, has he?”

“Talon Kar is currently sitting in his tent complaining about the temperature,” Kal said. He was smirking a little. His thumbs brushed over her cheekbones. “Don’t worry about your paintings, Tali. Breathe for a minute. You’ve been running on fumes for two days.”

“No. I slept last night.”

“For maybe an hour.” That thing he was doing with his fingers was hypnotizing. She might just pass out in her chair. “Don’t think I didn’t notice, ma’am. Your lamp was on very late.”

“Why were you awake, then?” she asked. “My light doesn’t shine into your window, does it? If it does, just message me on the ‘net, I’ll keep it off—”

His fingers slowed. Tali opened her eyes. He was giving her that look, the one that always made her toes curl. Deliberately, Kal reached behind her, and keyed the remote lock on her door. It flashed red. “Doorway secure,” said the VI, and she couldn’t help it. She felt herself smile, slowly. Her heart skipped.

“Were you missing something, then, soldier?”

“I’d say it was a bit more urgent than ‘missing,’ ma’am.” His hands ghosted down her arms to her elbows, and she let him pull her out of the chair. She would never stop enjoying that they were almost the same height. It meant that she didn’t have to crane her neck to look him in the eye. Her skin tingled.

“Well,” she said, and it was more of an effort than she’d ever admit to keep her voice steady. “I think I’m going to need a report on that.”

Tali knew a lot of words. One of her primary accomplishments before the age of twelve was that she’d memorized a dictionary. The only word she could think of to describe Kal’s smile, right now, was _dirty_. He leaned close enough for her to taste his breath, and brushed his nose against hers, licking his lips. “Well, I did say I had a progress report to give.”

Then he was kissing her. Tali twined her fingers into the cloth of his shirt and pressed herself close. He smelled of sweat and the sand of Yiren and of Kal, salty skin and the rough bar-soap he always used, and it sent a spice of heat through her blood. His hands rested warm and steady on her hips. He kissed her, long and slow, the way he always did, like kissing her was a hobby in and of itself; it always made her knees all shivery. She flicked her tongue against his lips and pulled back just enough to say, “Well, that’s interesting. How about in more detail?”

Kal grinned against her mouth, and then in one swift move he’d slid his hands down her spine, over her ass, and gripped her thighs, heaving her off her feet. Tali squeaked, but he just set her gently on top of her desk, his fingers swirling interesting circles against the tops of her legs. He kissed her, once, twice, and then said, in a hoarse voice just against her mouth, “Pretty sure I can do that.”

Tali groaned, and fisted her fingers in his hair. It was longer than marine regs, now, delightfully pullable, and when she tugged, Kal made a low noise in his throat. It was like striking an old-fashioned match. Leaving one hand on her thigh (and wasn’t that interesting, they could definitely work with that later) Kal ran his fingers up her torso, over each of her ribs, between her breasts, and up to the back of her neck so he could cup her head and kiss her harder, drawing his tongue in an agonizing line along the roof of her mouth. She growled at him (and felt his heart jolt, because she knew he _loved it_ when she went all growly) and hooked a leg around the back of his thigh, drawing him closer. She’d peeled his shirt off and he was working on her bra when there was a buzz at the door.

“Professor Zorah,” said a voice, and Tali broke away to hide her red and sweaty face in Kal’s neck. His shoulders were shaking. For a second, she thought it was from the tension. Then she realized it was because he was _laughing_ , and she pinched him. Or tried to. Her fingers just kind of slid off of his pectoral muscle, because _he basically had no pinchable skin ther_ e. She dug her fingernails into his hip instead, and he bit her ear. “I remember you said earlier you were going to examine the temple paintings. Might I accompany you?”

“Yes, Talon Kar,” she said, and her voice was _almost_ normal. Almost. The fact that Kal’s thumb was still sketching out patterns against the skin of her thigh meant it squeaked a little at the end. “Give me a moment.”

“Yes, Professor Zorah.” said Talon Kar, and then her intercom clicked off, and Tali swore, long and loud, against Kal’s shoulder.

“I’m going to kill him. He keeps getting my name wrong, he's already threatened to take away my funding and now he’s keeping me from getting laid, I’m going to _kill_ that little drain-sucking—”

Kal tilted her head back with his finger, and kissed her hard. When he pulled back, she couldn’t quite remember what the rest of her threat had been. He set his lips to the corner of her mouth, and then to her cheekbone. “I still have a report to give,” he said. “I’ll be here when you get back.”

"Your compromise is acceptable," Tali said. She kissed him quickly, and then hopped off the desk. She felt rumpled. Tali pulled her hair back into a ponytail, gave Kal a lingering glance over her shoulder—he didn’t notice, stowing himself into her bunk area, out of sight of the main door—before checking her reflection once in the standing mirror and keying the door open. Talon Kar was twiddling his thumbs on her doorstep. He had to lean back to look into her face.

“Ah, Professor Zorah,” he said, and she bit her tongue. _Tali_ , she thought. _Professor_ Tali’Zorah nar Rayya _. How difficult is it?_ “You look flushed. Perhaps we should send for air conditioning units to be installed in all of the academic housing.”

Tali sighed, and as she keyed the door shut, she could have sworn she heard Kal snorting.


End file.
